Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Liz Wade and I'm Mike Propter. Spotlight uses a
special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter
where in the world they live. Ruby still sleeps in the basket. She
sleeps with her soft plaything. She likes to have both hands and feet holding
something when she is lifted. Do you want to hold her? Deirdre Devilliers
is talking about a baby, but Ruby is not a human baby. She
is a small furry animal, a koala. Davilliers is a koala researcher.
She is caring for Ruby. Davilliers rescued Ruby from the mouth of a dog,
and Ruby is sick. Davilliers will care for her until she is healthy.
Then Ruby will be able to live in the trees with other wild koalas.
Today's spotlight is on these koalas. People often called koalas koala bears.
A koala does look like a small sized bear, like a bear. It
is covered with gray hair or fur. It has large ears, wide eyes,
and a long black nose. A koala has a round, furry body
like a bear. But a koala is not a bear. It is a
marsupial. Marsupials are animals that have a special way to carry their newborn babies.
They have a pouch. The fur on their stomach can open to hold
something a bit like a bag. The koala mother carries her new baby in
this pouch. This makes it easier for her to climb trees. Koalas spend
most of their lives up in a tree. They eat tree leaves. Koalas
particularly like the shiny, dark leaves of the eucalyptus tree. Eucalyptus trees grow
in eastern Australia. This is the home of the koalas too. Around the
year eighteen hundred, Europeans settled in Australia. At this time there were probably
millions of koalas in eastern Australia. The number is much smaller now. The
Australian Koala Foundation says there are only about forty to eighty thousand koala's left.
This sounds like a big number. However, Koalas are in serious danger.
The human population of Australia is growing. As people build more roads and houses,
they cut down eucalyptus trees, but the koalas need these trees to survive.
Trees provide shelter, food, and safety for the koalas. Humans also
build fences, drive vehicles, and own dogs. These things can all be
dangerous to a koala. Dear Dredvilliers Tell's National Geographic Koalas are getting caught in
fences and dying. They are killed by dogs and hit by vehicles. They
are even dying from simple things, like a person who cuts down several eucalyptus
trees around his house. People also bring something else that harms koala's disease.
Koalas can die from human disease. It causes another problem too. Disease can
change their behavior. It can make koalas fight each other. Diseases can also
make koalas unable to produce babies. This is a big problem because the number
of koalas is shrinking. Many people are worried that soon there may be no
koalas at all. Joel Sartori is a photographer for National Geographic magazine. He
is very famous for his pictures of rare or endangered animals. He visited eastern
Australia to take pictures of koalas. Sartori took one particularly difficult picture. It
was a picture of all the koalas that had died in one area during one
week. The picture shows the bodies of thirteen koalas. Satori tells National Geographic
about it. I knew I had to get a picture of dead koalas for
this story, but I kept having trouble. People at the animal clinic I
was working with said it would look bad. The Australian government does not even
like to say that these koalas are endangered, but the workers at one place
I visited thought this was an important picture to make. They told me that
in this area these animals will be completely gone in three to five years.
They want the world to know that the koala has many enemies, such as
disease, dogs and people cutting down trees, but koalas have many friends too.
Many people are working to protect the koalas from danger. People like Deirdre
de Villiers take care of hurt koalas. Some people even work with koalas in
their own houses. Samantha Longman is one of these people. She takes care
of koala babies. She is like their mother. The baby koalas climb on
her, they depend on her. She tells National Geographic about this work It
does not leave me much time for anything else, but the little creatures are
part of our family. What we are doing is important. Some people work
with the government to protect land and trees. The Australian Koala Foundation or AKF,
is asking the government to use more land as natural park areas. These
parks would be a good place for koalas to live. The AKF would also
like the government to create laws to protect koalas. They want to stop people
from cutting down eucalyptus trees. Without eucalyptus trees, the koalas cannot survive.
The AKF website explains eighty percent of the land that koalas live on is privately
owned. It is often farmland, not in national parks. This is why
the ak F wants a law that will prevent people from cutting down trees on
their land. We want a law to encourage people to protect and manage the
land where koalas live. There is another way Davillias works to protect koalas.
She watches wild koalas. This way she can learn how the koalas are doing.
She studies their health, and she studies the population growth of koalas in
the area. Humans have caused many problems for koalas in Australia, but Davilliers
says that people and koalas can live together. People can make some changes that
would help the koalas. They can drive more slowly. They can make shore
that there are enough eucalyptus trees for the koalas to live in and eat.
On one trip, Davillias studied TV a koala she had watched for over a
year. To her surprise, Davilias discovered TV had a young baby in her
pouch. Davilliers shared her excited reaction with National Geographic. While there are still
healthy babies, there is still hope. The rider and producer of this program
was Na Damn. The voices you heard we're from the United States and the
United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
You can listen to this program again and read it on the internet at www
dot Radio English dot net. This program is called Koala's in Danger. You
can also leave your comments on our website or you can email us at radio
at Radio English dot net. You can also find us on Facebook. Just
search for Spotlight Radio. We hope you can join us again for the next
Spotlight program. Goodbye,